Running up that hill

The cold salty wind was the first thing that struck John as they transitioned into the barrier. The second was the small collection of weather worn stone ruins that stood around them. Above them, grey clouds churned, the sun’s light kept dim by their cover, giving the whole area a gloomy feel. Just past the crumbling remains of a low stone wall, John could see down towards a distant coastline.

“Guess this is really happening on a hill,” he joked right as a popup appeared in front of him.

King of the Hill mode selected. Defeat the approaching enemies without leaving the old watch fort and without losing all your lives. Wave 1 (15 enemies) will begin their approach in one minute.

“Fifteen enemies at once?” Vivian exclaimed. “That’s a lot more than last time.”

“We are higher level than them,” John said before his eyes drifted to Lynn. If his memory was right, she was level 21, higher than any of them. “I think we’ll be fine.”

Aeolia, who had flown up to the top of one of the ruins, called out. “I can see them coming. They’re small little things.”

“Small and fast probably,” John said, his mental clock nearing the end of the minute grace period. “Any last second ideas?”

“Hit them hard and fast?” Beth suggested, her sphere already spinning in her hand.

“I’m beginning to regret letting you stick with them,” Lynn muttered to Beth, but John noted a lack of actual heat to her words. Instead, she made a gesture with her free hand and drew the yellow liquid out from the flask she was holding into a halo that flew around her like a floating river.

John’s mental countdown hit zero and a sharp war cry rang out from down the hill. It was game time. With a quick mental effort, John Overlayed with his wind spirit. The pleasant surge of his mana turning wholly into the wind element felt right given the setting and he quickly ran to the remains of a single story tall building. With his increased agility, he easily climbed up the uneven stone and stood on its still intact roof.

With the better vantage point, he could make out the approaching gaggle of gremlins. It looked like all fifteen were coming up the same way, which gave him an idea.

“Beth! Think you can trap them when they hit that part?” he asked, pointing to what looked like the main path up the hill, a barren patch of dirt flanked by two crumbling stone pillars. “If we can hold them there, we can take them out with potshots.”

Beth had already run up a higher structure and looked down at where John was pointing.

“Yeah, I think I can reach it if I’m right at the wall,” she said before running back down. She slid to a stop right at the stone boundary. She placed her left hand on the rugged wall and frowned in concentration. John could almost imagine the stream of her mana flowing down the hill and pooling between the ruined spires.

The gremlins raced between the spires, and once all were in place, Beth triggered her mana. In an instant, the horde was stopped, their bodies lurching forward as their feet refused to leave the ground.

John took the opportunity to throw an Observe at them.

“They’re the speed type,” he called out. “Let’s take them out before they can use that to their advantage!”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Beth shouted back, a slight strain in her voice. She cocked her right arm back and threw her orb at the leading gremlin. The spinning ball flew true and smacked it hard in the head, before the sphere ricocheted into two more gremlins behind it. The blows, however, didn’t seem to really damage the gremlins, only drawing out more aggravated cries from the gaggle.

The fact the level ten gremlin hadn’t been more affected by Beth’s attack when her first attack with the rapidly spinning sphere had turned stone to sand left John confused for a second, before an idea popped into his mind.

“Aeolia, can you hit the front gremlin from here?”

“You doubting me?” she asked as she bounced her glaive against her shoulder before whipping it around, green wind gathering along its edge. The crescent of wind flew down the hill like a diving falcon and struck the gremlin in the chest. The blast nearly knocked it back, only Beth’s magic keeping it anchored, but otherwise, it remained apparently unharmed.

“What the fuck!?” Aeolia shouted.

“Hit him again,” John ordered. “I think they might be playing by the same rules as us.”

Aeolia didn’t hesitate and attacked again. This time, her wind arc drew blood before the gremlin faded into nothingness, much to the anger of its compatriots.

“They aren’t running on HP,” John quickly relayed. “They each need three hits to be taken out.”

“Guess me sticking them doesn’t count,” Beth grumbled as she kept up the hold. Down below, the gremlins were straining against her efforts, trying to peel themselves free.

“Suppose only direct attacks with the intent to harm work,” Vivian mused. “We should take advantage and deal with this round while Beth’s still keeping them stuck.”

“I’ll take care of it,” John said as he jumped down and marched to the wall. He tugged on his glove. With a thought, he cast Fiery Pursuit, the wind enhanced Evocation crossing the distance between him and the throng in a blink. It struck one of the gremlins Beth’s attack already had and exploded with a wave of heat and ****.

The concussive **** was too much for Beth to keep them pinned and she let out a grunt of exertion as she fell back from the wall.

“Too many things to hold,” she said through gasping breaths.

“Sorry,” John said, quickly reaching down to help her up. “Didn’t get any damage notifications, so I’m guessing it won’t matter how much an attack could do for it to count.”

Down the hill, the gremlins were recovering from the blast and it wouldn’t be long before they were racing towards them.

“Do we let them get closer?” Aeolia asked, her glaive glowing slightly.

“I’m still a bit limited on range, so let’s see if we can handle them a bit more up close and personal,” John answered. “If we get overwhelmed and knocked out, we can try to keep them at bay for longer next go round.”

John looked down the hill, ready to start firing off attacks as the **** came, when one of the gremlins threw down some sort of ceramic sphere, releasing a pale green mist that swirled around them. Then the whole group took off with blinding speed, wisps of green streaming from them.

The gremlins raced up the hill, turning into sickly green blurs as they approached, guttural cries rising over the sound of wind.

“Shit!” Jon exclaimed. “They are fast!”

The gremlins reached the top of the hill right as John’s words left his lips and bounded over the ruined wall. One quickly tackled Beth, knocking her to the ground. Before it could make a second strike, John bore down on it, Senka’s vessel in hand. Shadow Snare snaked around the gremlin, restricting its movement for the second it took him to drive the knife into its side.

The gremlin let out a choked grunt before dissolving into nothingness. John hauled Beth to her feet. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she answered, hand reaching into her pocket for another ball.

Around them, a chaotic battle was underway. Aeolia flew in her natural size, taking advantage of the hit rule to evade the wild swings of the speed enhanced gremlins and deliver precise scalpel strikes on them when exposed. Lynn had a vortex of caustic yellow acid flowing around her, smaller tendrils shooting off like vipers to strike at the gremlins when they got too close to the blonde.

Kiera glided around, buoyed by her magic. With increasing confidence, she was knocking gremlins off balance before striking them with her staff. Vivian bent light to throw off her opponents’ aim, all while charging focused beams of light to strike back with.

Senka remained where she had set herself, shadows blocking attacks in one hand, a blade of darkness in the other delivering brutal reprisals. And Anita was a whirl of activity. Spores of white and yellow swirled around her, forming into mycelial tendrils growing from her hands that lashed out at the gremlins around her, their movements growing more sluggish with even a near miss.

John rushed into the fray, his steps only faltering slightly when the cool of Senka’s mana suddenly filled him.

‘Looks like you could use a top off,’ the spirit said before her attention went back to the gremlins. John rolled with it, Vessel Cloak counted as a spirit skill as far as he knew so it was as good as any other option he had.

'Actually, it’s a bit better at close range, less chance of collateral damage,’ he thought as the blade of shadow grew out of Senka’s vessel and darkness crawled up his arm. John dashed forward, eyes locking onto one gremlin. Up close, it was just as Observe had described: leathery grey skin, large bat-like ears, wide eyes alight with a desire to do harm and cloaked in rags and wind magic.

‘Let’s slow you down,’ John thought, Hex launching from his fingers. It wasn’t often he used it with wind mana, the only time he did was back in that floating city when he deflected an attack aimed at Rowan, and afterwards, he hadn’t looked into it with everything that followed after it, so he didn’t know exactly how it worked, only that it seemed to give him some control over the effect’s movement. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The wind driven Hex hit the gremlin at the speed of thought, his mind gaining a degree of control of the effect. With a sharp mental tug, John pulled on the wind cloak, trying to replicate the effect dark mana had with Hex. Instead, his mind was filled with the impression of a plastic bag filled with water being squeezed, shifting the water into a smaller portion.

His sense of the gremlin’s magic faded, even as the monster’s legs slowed in comparison to its arms which grew faster. Taking advantage of the creature’s surprise, John thrust the vessel blade at it, stabbing through it with ease before he drew back and struck again.

The two strikes finished off the gremlin and it faded away, giving John a moment to commit to memory just what wind mana did to Hex

Wind: Gain control of (Skill Lv x 10)% of one of the target’s effects.

It was a bit vague, but from the two experiences he had, it seemed wind let Hex hack a spell, giving him some control over it. For the arcane cannonball aimed at Rowan, he hijacked the propulsion, and for the wind cloak, he directed the buff away from the legs. He could see how tweaking a spell’s effect would be useful over simple negation, absorption or decay of magically generated substances.

Getting his head back into the fight, John rushed towards the nearest gremlin. They were nearly done with this first wave and he was ready for the short lull in action so they could regroup and refine their battle plan. It wouldn’t be long at all.

Wave 1 completed. Wave 2 (20 enemies) will begin in 2 minutes!

“That wasn’t too bad,” Vivian commented as she leaned against one of the ruined buildings.

“Helps that these guys go down in only three hits,” Aeolia said before frowning. “Can’t say I really like it. Feels like we aren’t earning the win with them all paper like.”

“It’s only until this quest is done, then we can go back to the more visceral way,” John said, checking said quest’s progress. From a quick accounting, John figured his total should be fourteen between the two categories since he had hit every gremlin except the first one Beth and Aeolia had taken out. He had hit the remaining fourteen with at least the shockwave from Fiery Pursuit.

His face fell when he saw only three kills fit the quest’s parameters, one to Evocation and two to spirit. It didn’t take much to tally up how he got those points; he took out two with the Vessel Cloak blade and the last point came from the gremlin he’d directly hit with his fireball.

“That makes things more complicated,” he muttered, closing the display. “AOE’s are out. Seems like targeted attacks are the only ones that work. And it seems I can only get one point per enemy. I took out one with the vessel blade after using Shadow Snare to stop its movements, but it seems like it only counted the last blow.”

“Got to make up for them being three hit chumps,” Beth remarked, lightly tossing one of her spheres into the air. “I’m just glad I get my balls teleported back to me.”

Aeolia let out a snorted laugh and Beth caught onto what she just said. Flustered, she shouted at Aeolia, “You know what I meant.”

“Doesn’t make it any less funny,” the winged woman grinned.

Beth looked ready to lunge at Aeolia when Vivian stepped in. “We’ve got a little more than a minute before things start up again. Let’s not get distracted.”

“Right,” John said. “Any new ideas? And does anyone need a top off? I’m good for another round.”

There was a smattering of ‘nos’ for mana potions aside from Beth who already had one in hand. She drank it down and said afterwards, “Since big blasts don’t work, trying to glue them down probably isn’t the best use of my mana, right?”

“That’s a hard one,” John admitted. “We are a bit limited on ranged attacks so locking them all down just means you’re burning mana for us just to take a few potshots before letting them get closer.”

“Spot applications sound like a better use for your magic,” Vivian chimed in. “Stick one so someone can hit quickly, and keep moving since these guys are going to be speed demons. Best to throw them off when we can and keep nimble.”

“Sounds as good of a plan we can make in under a minute,” Lynn remarked dryly. “I think I have some acid I can lay down around the area they’re going to attack from. See if that counts as an attack.”

“Can’t hurt, unless we step in it.” John grinned. A quick count in his head brought the countdown to the last few seconds. “Game time, everyone!”

Wave 2 (20 enemies) begins!

There was no warning beyond that notification and the warcries of the gremlins that sounded all around them. Aeolia was quick to fly up, her face growing grim as she took in the whole area.

“They’re coming from everywhere,” she called down to them, wind already charging on her glaive.

“Guess they’ve got an IQ update,” John muttered as the battle began with little build up. The gremlins were already charged with their wind magic, racing up the hill without caution. Everyone sprang into action according to their preferred method of fighting. John quickly drew upon the well of dark mana Senka gave him and cast a dark Hex at the first gremlin that came at him.

Immediately, his already boosted Agility spiked further and his chosen target faltered as its speed dropped. A quick flurry of strikes with his spirit blade dealt with the gremlin, and John turned his attention to the remaining horde, his eyes flicking between the nearest ones and the blade of dark mana in his hand.

‘Let’s see if I can get the spirit tally close to half way through this round.’